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Whether the wave function is real depends on your answer to the question: is momentum real? You can't directly measure or observe momentum, you can't point to i
by Confusion 13y ago
Whether the wave function is real depends on your answer to the question: is momentum real? You can't directly measure or observe momentum, you can't point to it in the world, but you can definitely feel its impact and it's a convenient measure for certain properties of objects. In that sense the wave function is just as real.
But you can argue both those things are not as real as e.g. extension, force and energy, which are much more readily available to our senses.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- stillsut 13y agoCan't I just weigh Galileo's cannon ball, then based on T from when I dropped it know its momentum? I think the difference comes on moving past the macroscopic world: say I drop a uranium atom into Shroedinger's box - I can't calculate at time T whether the cat is alive.
- Confusion 13y agoYes, you can calculate the momentum it had anywhere along the path while it dropped. Does being able to calculate some property make it real? If I take the square root of the momentum and call it the 'squish' of an object, is my 'squish' property then real?